1 Kings 19:5

_AND AS HE LAY AND SLEPT UNDER A JUNIPER TREE, BEHOLD, THEN AN ANGEL TOUCHED HIM, AND SAID UNTO HIM, ARISE AND EAT._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-8 Jezebel sent Elijah a threatening message. Carnal hearts are hardened and enraged against God, by that which should convince and conquer them. Great faith is not always alike strong. He might be serviceable to Israel at this time, and had all reason to depend upon God's protection, while doing God's work; yet he flees. His was not the deliberate desire of grace, as Paul's, to depart and be with Christ. God thus left Elijah to himself, to show that when he was bold and strong, it was in the Lord, and the power of his might; but of himself he was no better than his fathers. God knows what he designs us for, though we do not, what services, what trials, and he will take care that we are furnished with grace sufficient....

Verse 1 Kings 19:5. _AS HE LAY AND SLEPT_] Excessive anguish of mind frequently induces sleep, as well as great fatigue of body. _AN ANGEL TOUCHED HIM_] He needed refreshment, and God sent an angel to bring him what was necessary....

AN ANGEL TOUCHED HIM - The friendly ministration of angels, common in the time of the patriarchs Genesis 18:2; Genesis 19:1; Genesis 28:12; Genesis 32:1, Genesis 32:24, and known also under the Judges Judges 6:11; Judges 13:3, was now extended to Elijah. Any other explanation of this passage does violence to the words. It is certainly not the intention

EXPOSITION ELIJAH'S FLIGHT THE THEOPHANY OF HOREB AND THE CALLING OF ELISHA.—We can readily understand with what a sense of humiliation and shame the weak and excited king, who must have been awed and impressed by the strange portent he had witnessed, would recount the day's proceedings to his imperious and headstrong consort, and with what intense mortification and rage she must have heard of the triumph of the proscribed religion and of the defeat and death of the priests of Baal. One might almost have expected that the testimony of an eyewitness, and that her husband, to the greatness and completeness of Elijah's victory; that his unprejudiced, and indeed unwilling, account of the sacrifices, of the descent of the heavenly fire, of the cries it wrung from the people, etc; w

AND AS HE LAY AND SLEPT UNDER A JUNIPER TREE,.... Being weary and fatigued with his journey, the same under which he sat; for there was but one, as that is said to be in the preceding verse: BEHOLD, THEN AN ANGEL TOUCHED HIM, AND SAID UNTO HIM, ARISE, AND EAT; so far was the Lord from granting his request to take away his life, that he made provision to preserve it; so careful was he of him, as to give an angel charge to get food ready for him, and then awake him to eat of it....

ANGEL (_ See Scofield) - (Hebrews 1:4). _...

3. ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS AND UPON MOUNT HOREB CHAPTER 19 _ 1. Elijah's flight and despondency (1 Kings 19:1)_ 2. Upon Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:9) 3. Elisha called (1 Kings 19:10) Elijah perhaps stopped at the very door of the palace where wicked Jezebel dwelt. He would remain with Ahab to the very last before he went in to face the queen. Should not Elijah have remained and gone even before Jezebel to bear his testimony? Instead he becomes terrified of wicked Jezebel. Had he hoped that what had taken place on Carmel would result in bringing not alone Ahab back to Jehovah, but also influence Jezebel? If such was his expectation he must have been bitterly disappointed. Jezebel s

1 Kings 19:1. ELIJAH'S FLIGHT TO HOREB. HIS COMMISSION. Jezebel, it will be noticed, can do no more than threaten Elijah: her power is limited. Elijah escapes to the southern extremity of Judah, to Beersheba, a sacred place of pilgrimage frequented (Amos 5:5; Amos 8:14) even by N. Israelites. In the desert, under a juniper or broom tree, he received his vision (1 Kings 19:5), and went to Horeb, the Mount of God. Horeb is Sinai: the name is employed in the N. Israelite Hexateuchal narrative E and in Deuteronomy. It was supposed to be Yahweh's special dwelling-place (Judges 5:4;

_And as he lay and slept_ Better, with R.V., -And he LAY DOWN and slept." The verb is the same as that which is so rendered at the close of the next verse. The description is of what Elijah did, not only of something which happened -as he lay." _behold then_ R.V. AND BEHOLD. A change made necessary by the previous alteration. _an angel touched him_ The LXX. omits -an angel," and so does the narrative of Josephus, which merely has διεγειράντος δʼ αὐτόν τινος....